Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  The green Chrysler stayed two cars back for forty miles. Just out of Baltimore he exited onto the Snowden River Parkway, took it a mile to Highway I, and stopped at the first diner he saw.

  The Chrysler parked across the highway at the far end of a large lot. Gentry ordered coffee and a doughnut and stopped a busboy as the youngster walked by with a tray of dirty dishes. “Son, how would you like to earn twenty dollars?” The boy squinted suspiciously at him. “There’s a car out there I’d like to know more about,” said Gentry, pointing out the Chrysler. “If you’d get a chance to take a stroll that way, I’d like to know what the license number is and anything else you could notice.”

  The boy was back before Gentry finished his coffee. He reported breathlessly, finished with, “Gees, I don’t think they noticed me. I mean, I was just takin’ out the garbage to the Dumpster like Nick usually has me do at noon. Gees, who are they, anyway?” Gentry paid the boy, went to the rest room, and used the pay phone in the back hallway to call the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Authority. The main offices were closed on Sunday morning, but a tape recording gave a number for emergencies. A woman with a tired voice answered.

  “Shit, I shouldn’t be calling’ ya, ’cause they’d kill me if they knew,” started Gentry, “but Nick, Louis, and Delbert just left here to start the revolution by blowing’ up the Harbor Tunnel.”

  The woman’s voice no longer sounded tired as she demanded his name. Gentry heard a background beep as a tape recorder started.

  “No time for that, no time for that!” he said excitedly. “Delbert, he got the guns and Louis got thirty-six sticks of dynamite from the construction site an’ they got it stuck in the hidden compartment in the trunk. Nick says the revolution starts today. He got ’em the phony IDs an’ everything.”

  The woman squawked a question and Gentry interrupted her. “I gotta get out of here. They’ll kill me if they find out I tol’. They’re in Delbert’s car . . . a green ’seventy-six Lebanon. Mary land license DB7269. Delbert’s driven’. He’s the one with the mustache, wearing a blue suit. Oh, Jesus, they all got guns and the whole damn car’s wired to go up.” Gentry broke the connection, ordered a coffee to go, paid his bill, and sauntered back to the Pinto.

  He was only a few miles from the tunnel and in no particular hurry to get there so he drove up to the University of Mary land campus, let the Pinto wander through the Loudon Park Cemetery, and drove down along the waterfront. The Chrysler had to stay far back because of the sparse Sunday traffic, but the driver was good, neither completely losing sight of Gentry’s car nor becoming too obvious.

  Gentry followed signs to the Harbor Tunnel Thruway, paid his toll, and watched in the rearview mirror as he pulled slowly into the lighted tunnel. The Chrysler never got to the toll booth. Three highway patrol vehicles, a black van with no markings, and a blue station wagon boxed it in fifty yards from the tunnel entrance. Four other police cruisers stopped traffic behind them. Gentry caught a glimpse of men leaning across hoods with shotguns and pistols leveled, saw the three men in the Chrysler waving arms out windows, and then he was busy driving as fast as he could to get out of the tunnel. If it was the FBI behind him, they could probably extricate themselves in a few minutes. God help them if they were Israelis and armed.

  Gentry got off the Thruway as soon as he was out of the tunnel, got lost for a few minutes near the downtown, oriented himself when he saw Johns Hopkins, and took Highway I out of town. Traffic was light. He noticed an exit to Germantown, Mary land, a few miles out of town, and had to smile to himself. How many Germantowns were there in the United States? He hoped that Natalie had chosen the wrong one.

  Gentry reached the southwest environs of Philadelphia by 10:30 and was in Germantown by 11:00. There had been no sign of the Chrysler and if someone else had picked up the surveillance, they were too smooth for Gentry to pick out of the traffic. The Chelten Arms looked as if it had seen better days on the Avenue but would not last long enough to see them return. Gentry parked the Pinto half a block away, slipped the Ruger into his sports coat pocket, and walked back. He counted five winos— three black, two white— huddled in doorways.

  Miz Preston did not answer a call from the front desk. The clerk was an officious little white man, mostly nose, who combed his three remaining strands of hair from just above his left ear to just above his right ear. He clucked and shook his head when Gentry asked for a passkey. Gentry showed his badge. The clerk clucked again. “Charleston? Friend, you’re going to have to do a lot better than some dime store badge. A Georgia policeman wouldn’t have any jurisdiction here.”

  Gentry nodded, sighed, looked around at the empty lobby, and turned back around to grasp the clerk’s greasy tie four inches below the knot. He jerked only once, but it was sufficient to bring the man’s chin and nose to within eight inches of the countertop. “Listen, friend,” Gentry said softly, “I’m here working liaison through Chief of Detectives Captain Donald Romano, Franklin Street Precinct, Hom i cide. That woman may have information leading to the apprehension of a man who murdered six people in cold blood. And I’ve been awake for forty-eight hours getting here. Now do I call Captain Romano after I bounce your goddamn face off the wood a few times just for the hell of it, or do we do it the simple way?”

  The clerk fumbled behind himself and produced a passkey. Gentry released him and he bounced up like a jack-in-the-box, rubbing his Adam’s apple and swallowing tentatively.

  Gentry took three steps toward the elevator, wheeled, took two long strides back to the counter, and got a second grip on the clerk’s tie before the red-faced man could back away. Gentry pulled him close, smiled at him, and said, “And son, Charleston County is in South Carolina, not Georgia. Remember that. There’ll be a quiz later.”

  There was no corpse in Natalie’s room. No bloodstains other than a few remnants of squashed bugs near the ceiling. No ransom notes. Her suitcase lay open on the fold-out rack, clothes neatly packed, a pair of dress shoes on the floor. The dress she had worn to the Charleston airport two days earlier was hanging in the open closet. There were no toiletries set out in the bathroom; the shower was dry although one bar of soap had been unwrapped and used. Her camera bag and cameras were not there. The bed either had been made already or not slept in the previous night.

  Guessing at the efficiency of the Chelten Arms, Gentry thought that it had not been slept in.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face. He could think of nothing clever to do. The only path that made much sense was to start walking through Germantown, hoping for a chance encounter, checking back at the hotel every hour and hoping that the clerk or manager would not call the Philly police. Well, a few hours of walking in the brisk weather wouldn’t hurt him.

  Gentry took off his coat and sports coat, lay back on the bed, set the Ruger next to his right hand, and was asleep in two minutes.

  He awoke in a dark room, disoriented, feeling that something was terribly wrong. His Rolex, a gift from his father, read 4:35. There was a dim, gray light outside, but the room had become dark. Gentry went into the bathroom to wash his face and then called down to the front desk. Miss Preston had not come in or called for her messages.

  Gentry walked the half block to his car, transferred his suitcase to the trunk, and went for a walk. He went southeast on Germantown Avenue for a couple of blocks, past a small, fenced park. He would have loved to stop somewhere for a beer, but the bars were closed. It did not feel like a Sunday to Gentry, but he could not decide what day of the week it did feel like. It was snowing lightly as he stopped to get his suitcase and walked back to the hotel. A much younger and more polite clerk was on duty. Gentry checked in, paid thirty-two dollars in advance, and was ready to follow a porter to his room when he thought to ask about Natalie. Gentry still had the passkey in his pocket; perhaps potato-nose had gone off duty without mentioning it to anyone.

  “Yes, sir,” said the young clerk. “Miss Preston picked up her messages about fifteen minutes ago.�
�

  Gentry blinked. “Is she still here?”

  “She went up to her room for a few minutes, sir, but I believe I just saw the lady go into the dining room.”

  Gentry thanked him, tipped the bellhop three dollars to carry his bag up, and walked over to the entrance of the small dining room bar.

  He felt his heart leap as he saw Natalie sitting at a small table across the room. He started toward her and then stopped. A short man with dark hair and an expensive leather jacket was standing by her table, talking to her. Natalie stared up at the man with a strange look on her face.

  Gentry hesitated only a second, then got in line for the salad bar. He did not look in Natalie’s direction again until he was seated. A waitress bustled over and took his order for coffee. He began eating slowly, never looking directly at Natalie’s table.

  Something was very wrong. Gentry had known Natalie Preston for less than two weeks, but he knew how animated she was. He was just beginning to learn the nuances of expression that were so much a part of her personality. He saw neither animation nor nuance now. Natalie stared at the man across from her as if she had been drugged or lobotomized. Occasionally she spoke and the rigid movements of her mouth reminded Gentry of his mother’s last year, after her stroke.

  Gentry wished he could see more of the man’s face, something other than the black hair, jacket, and pale hands folded on the tabletop. When he did turn around, Gentry caught a glimpse of hooded eyes, sallow complexion, and a small, thin-lipped mouth. Who was he looking for? Gentry picked up a newspaper from a nearby table and spent several minutes becoming a lonely, overweight salesman eating his salad. When he looked over toward Natalie again he was sure that the man with her was the focus of attention of at least two others in the room. Cops? FBI men? Israelis? Gentry finished the last of his salad, speared a runaway cherry tomato, and wondered for the thousandth time that day what he and Natalie had blundered into.

  What next? Worst-case scenario: the man with the lizard eyes was one of them, one of Saul’s mind-monsters, and his intentions toward Natalie were not friendly. The stakeout in the restaurant was a backup for whatever move this guy made. Probably more in the lobby. If they left and Gentry followed, he would be immediately visible. He had to precede them to follow them— but which way?

  Gentry paid his bill and returned for his topcoat just as Natalie and the man rose from their seats. She looked straight at Gentry from twenty feet away, but there was no recognition in her eyes; there was nothing there. Gentry moved quickly through the lobby and paused by the front door to make a show of tugging on his coat.

  The man led Natalie to the elevator, pausing to make an obscene gesture at another man seated on a worn couch. Gentry took a chance. Natalie was in Room 312. Gentry had asked for Room 310. The hotel had only three floors of guest rooms. If the man with the dead eyes was taking her anywhere but her room, Gentry would lose them.

  He crossed quickly to the stairway, took the stairs two and three at a time, stood panting for ten seconds on the top landing, and opened the door in time to see the man follow Natalie into 312. He stood there for almost a minute, waiting to see if any of the others from the lobby were following. When no one appeared he moved lightly down the hall to pause with three fingers touching the door to Natalie’s room. He found the grip of the Ruger and then decided against it. If this man was like Saul’s Oberst, he could make Gentry use the revolver on himself. If he wasn’t like the Oberst, Gentry did not think he would need the weapon.

  Jesus, thought Gentry, what if I break in and this is some good friend of Natalie’s who she’s inviting up? He remembered the expression on her face and silently slid the passkey into the lock.

  Gentry went in fast, filling the short interior hallway, seeing the man seated, turning, opening his mouth to speak. Gentry took half a second to notice Natalie’s semi-nakedness and the terror visible on her face and then he swung his arm up and then down, bringing his fist down on the top of the man’s head as if he was driving a huge nail with the base of his hand. The man had been rising; now he went deep into the sagging cushion, bounced twice, and sprawled unconscious across the left arm of the chair.

  Gentry made sure the man was out of action and then he turned to Natalie. Her blouse was unbuttoned, bra undone, but she made no move to cover herself. Her entire body began shaking as if she were in the beginning of a seizure. Gentry pulled off his coat and draped it around her just as she collapsed forward into his arms, her head snapping from side to side in silent negation. When she tried to speak, her teeth were chattering so hard that Gentry could hardly understand her. “Oh . . . R-Rob . . . hub . . . hub . . . he tried t . . . to . . . I . . . c-c-couldn’t d-d-do any—y-thing.”

  Gentry held her, supported her, and stroked her hair. He was wondering feverishly what the next move should be.

  “Oh, G-g-god, I’m . . . g-going . . . to . . . b-be sick.” Natalie rushed into the bathroom.

  Gentry could hear retching sounds from behind the closed door as he bent over the unconscious man, lowered him to the floor, frisked him quickly and efficiently, and lifted his billfold. Anthony Harod, Beverly Hills. Mr. Harod had about thirty credit cards, a Playboy Key Card, a card identifying him as a member in good standing of the Writers Guild of America, and other plastic and paper tying him to Hollywood. There was a key to a Chestnut Hills Hotel in his jacket pocket. Harod was beginning to stir very slightly when Natalie came out of the bathroom, her clothing set right, her face still damp from washing. Anthony Harod moaned and rolled over on his side.

  “Goddamn you,” Natalie said with feeling and unleashed a kick at the fallen man’s groin. She was wearing solid, low-heel loafers and the energy behind the kick would have served well in a forty-yard field goal attempt. She aimed for Harod’s testicles, but Harod was rolling over and the blow took him just inside the hip, flipping him over twice and bringing his head hard up against the wooden leg of the bed.

  “Easy, easy,” said Gentry and knelt to check the man’s pulse and breathing. Anthony Harod of Beverly Hills, California, was still alive, but was quite unconscious. Gentry moved to the door. The room had no bolt and chain; the other lock was on. He came back and put his arm around Natalie.

  “Rob,” she gasped, “he was in my m-m-mind. He m-made me do things, made me say things . . .”

  “It’s all right,” said Gentry. “We’re going to get out of here right now.” He gathered up her extra shoes, snapped her suitcase shut, helped her into her coat, and threw her camera bag over his own shoulder. “There’s a fire escape going down to that alley. Do you think you can get down there with me all right?”

  “Yes, but why do we have to . . .”

  “We’ll talk when we’re out of here. My car’s just down the block. Come on.”

  It was dark out. The fire escape was sagging and slippery and Gentry expected half the hotel staff to come rushing out when he dropped the screeching, rusted ladder the last eight feet. No one appeared at the back-door.

  He helped Natalie down the last few rungs and they moved quickly down the dark alley. Gentry smelled snow and rotting garbage. They emerged on Germantown Avenue, went west thirty yards, and came around the corner ten yards from Gentry’s Pinto. No one was in sight; no one emerged from the dark storefronts or distant hotel as Gentry turned on the ignition, shifted gear, and swung onto Chelten Avenue.

  “Where are we going?” asked Natalie. “I don’t know. We’ll just get the hell out of this place and talk it over.”

  “All right.”

  Gentry turned east onto Germantown Avenue and had to slow for a trolley going the same direction. “Hell,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just left my suitcase in a room at your hotel.”

  “Anything important in it?”

  Gentry thought of the changes in shirt and slacks and chuckled. “Nope. And I’m sore’s hell not going back.”

  “Rob, what’s going on?”

  Gentry shook his hea
d. “I thought maybe you could tell me.”

  Natalie shivered. “I never felt . . . felt anything like that before. I couldn’t do anything. It was like my body wasn’t my own anymore.”

  “So we know they’re real,” said Gentry.

  Natalie laughed a little too loudly. “Rob, the old lady . . . Melanie Fuller . . . she’s here. Somewhere in Germantown. Marvin and the others have seen her. And she killed two more of the gang members last night. I was with . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” said Gentry, passing the trolley and a city bus marked SEPTA. The brick street lay straight and empty ahead. “Who’s Marvin?”

  “Marvin’s the leader of the Soul Brickyard Gang,” said Natalie. “He . . .”

  Something hit the Pinto hard from behind. Natalie bounced forward, using her hands to keep from hitting her head against the windshield. Gentry cursed and swiveled to look behind him. The huge grill of the city bus filled the Pinto’s rear window as it accelerated to hit them again. “Hang on!” shouted Gentry and floored the accelerator. The bus came on fast, tapping the Pinto’s rear end again before the little car began moving ahead.

  Gentry got the Pinto up to fifty-five, shaking and bouncing over the irregular brick surface and the ruts of trolley tracks. Even through the closed windows he could hear the roar of the bus’s diesel as the huge vehicle accelerated through half a dozen gears to catch up. “Oh, damn,” said Gentry. A block ahead, a semi trailer was backing into a loading space, temporarily obstructing the avenue. Gentry considered going up onto the sidewalk on the right, saw an old man rummaging through a trash container, and took a hard left into a narrow street, the rear end of the Pinto bouncing off the curb in a controlled slide. From the sound of it, Gentry guessed that the rear bumper had been torn loose during the first collision and was dragging behind them. Roughhouses flashed by on either side. Junkers, new model cars, and wheel-less derelicts lined the right curb.